1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a portable terminal and a communication connection method thereof with a function of performing connection to a prescribed server device through a communication line, and more specifically, it relates to improvements in the operation for carrying out inquiries about mail or message information and/or download of data (hereinafter simply referred to as inquiries) with respect to the server device which receives electronic mails and message information.
2. Description of the Related Art
There have hitherto been known portable terminals such as cellular phones which have the function of inquiring about the reception of electronic mails (hereinafter also simply referred to mails) to a server device which receives such electronic mails, and downloading the mails, if received, from the server device to the portable terminals. In such known portable terminals, the operational procedure for making inquiries about received mails is carried out as follows. That is, a menu is first called in which a plurality of functions are able to be displayed, and items relating to electronic mails are then selected from the menu. Thereafter, by directing and selecting items to be inquired about at a mail center (i.e., mail server device), a portable terminal is connected to the mail center and an inquiry is made as to whether there are any mail arrivals. In this manner, the user is able to carry out an inquiry about the arrival of mails while operating an appropriate menu or menus, thereby alleviating the operation load on the part of the user.
However, when an inquiry about the reception of electronic mails is made through menu operations, it is generally necessary to take a lot of operational steps while following multiple stages from menus as mentioned above and hence such operations are not necessarily simple. In particular, the above-mentioned operations are rather complicated under situations where mail inquiries need be carried out frequently or promptly. Therefore, if an inquiry of mail reception could be performed through a reduced number of operational steps, for example only a single operational step, in a portable terminal, the user would be able to perform such an operation in an extremely simple and prompt manner, thus making it possible to improve the convenience or ease of operation. In addition, in case of a known foldable portable terminal, if inquiries could be made with the portable terminal being in its folded state while being carried about by a user, the convenience or ease of operation would be more excellent.